For greater than twenty years, Nigeria has pursued renewable power as a part of the answer to its electrical energy disaster.
The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) reported that the typical provide from grid-connected energy vegetation was about 5,400MW in the fourth quarter of 2025, whereas World Bank data put the entry price at 62.5 per cent in 2024.
Authorities have tried to increase energy technology via photo voltaic and wind tasks. However, the 10MW Lambar-Rimi wind farm project in Katsina State exhibits how troublesome it has been for the nation to flip plans into functioning energy property.
Lambar-Rimi wind farm
The Katsina State Government began the project in 2005. Since then, the power has modified possession twice, the primary time in 2007 when it was taken over by the federal authorities.
After the takeover, the federal authorities awarded a contract in 2010 to a French firm, Vergnet S.A., to build the wind farm inside 24 months. The farm would have 37 generators, every to ship about 275 kilowatts of electrical energy. The contract included offshore elements valued at €18.5 million and onshore elements valued at N494 million.
Safe to say the project didn’t go in accordance to plan.
The project encountered a number of setbacks in a state dealing with extreme safety challenges. Following the abduction of a French commissioning engineer, the corporate obtained approval to switch elements of the work to a neighborhood contractor, Credco Nigeria Limited.
The revised association increased the contract to €20.85 million offshore and N573.90 million onshore.
By 2016, a authorities budget implementation report acknowledged the progress made in the project to embody the supply of two 7.5MVA transformers, restoration of a vandalised 33kV line, completion of basis work, set up of towers and generators, and development of medium-voltage rooms.
It mentioned excellent works included the overhead line linking the wind farm to the 33kV community and an injection substation at Liyafa.
The 2017 authorities funds implementation report later described the project as about 95 per cent full.
However, six years later, in 2023, Kano Electricity Distribution Company (KEDCO), the designated off-taker of energy from the wind farm, described the wind farm as solely 80 per cent full.
In an article published on 31 August 2026, the Nigerian Wind Energy Council (NWEC) mentioned years of inactivity had left the Lambar-Rimi wind farm’s generators degraded and in want of in depth rehabilitation.
New Twist
In April 2025, the Katsina State Government requested to reacquire the power. The federal authorities approved the switch, with the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, explaining that it was in line with the Electricity Act 2023 and the rising position of states in the electrical energy markets.
In September 2025, Katsina announced the reacquisition of the wind farm and its plans to hybridise it with a 10MW photo voltaic plant.
The state has since mentioned it was working with Vergnet to assess the generators, electrical techniques, and grid infrastructure. The state authorities expects the hybrid facility to come on stream in the fourth quarter of 2026.
The twists and turns in the Lambar-Rimi wind farm story show how Nigeria has struggled to produce and distribute sufficient electrical energy for its 240 million individuals.
PREMIUM TIMES despatched a number of calls and messages to the Special Adviser on Power and Energy to the Katsina State Governor, Abubakar Ibrahim, in search of particulars of the present standing of the power, the funds dedicated and whether or not progress had been made in the direction of the deliberate commissioning. The officers didn’t reply to the inquiry.
PREMIUM TIMES additionally made a number of makes an attempt to attain officers on the Federal Ministry of Power for clarification on why the project has not been accomplished in over 15 years.
The calls weren’t answered, and the ministry didn’t reply to the textual content messages both.
Lambar-Rimi not alone
Many different giant renewable-energy tasks in Nigeria have remained at totally different phases of improvement for years.
They embody the 100MW Maraban Pushit wind farm in Mangu Local Government Area of Plateau State, promoted by JBS Wind Power Limited.
A World Bank project document data that the corporate had secured a 45-year land lease, carried out environmental affect evaluation research and obtained provisional approval to evacuate electrical energy via a 132kV substation at Makeri in Plateau State.
The project appeared in regulatory data in October 2012, 14 years in the past, however has not developed into an working utility-scale wind farm. Publicly obtainable data reviewed for this report didn’t set up how a lot has been spent on the project or whether or not public funds had been dedicated.
Solar tasks in Nigeria have a equally blended observe report.
The 50MW Onyi project in Kokona, Nasarawa State, related with Afrinergia Power Limited, obtained a technology licence in April 2016. Global Energy Monitor lists the project as cancelled, inferring cancellation occurred in June 2024.
A 75 MW Kankia photo voltaic project in Katsina State was promoted by Pan Africa Solar Limited, with JCM Capital listed because the project proprietor. The Nation newspaper reported in July 2016 that the corporate and the federal authorities had signed an influence buy settlement for the project, with a proposed funding of $146 million.
NERC data show that Pan Africa Solar obtained a technology licence in December 2014, which expired in December 2024. The regulator lists the project as non-operational, whereas Global Energy Monitor classifies it as cancelled, with cancellation inferred to have occurred in February 2025.
However, regardless of the shortage of success in some renewable power tasks, others have been efficiently accomplished. A 10MW photo voltaic project in Kumbotso, Kano State, developed by the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), was commissioned in 2023. This project exhibits that utility-scale renewable tasks will be delivered when financing, project administration, evacuation infrastructure, and an identifiable market align.
A project is just not an ecosystem
In an interview with PREMIUM TIMES, NWEC’s Research and Operations Consultant, Ojodomo Odiniya, famous that Nigeria lacks an ecosystem able to turning energy sources into bankable tasks.
He recognized coverage and regulatory uncertainty, grid constraints, financing, insufficient wind-resource knowledge, weak institutional coordination, and land and group points as main obstacles.
Investors, he mentioned, want a predictable pathway from useful resource evaluation and land acquisition via allowing, procurement, financing, energy buy agreements, grid connection and long-term operation.
Mr Odiniya prescribed a scientific improvement of the sector. He mentioned this might additionally start with localising elements of the renewable-energy worth chain as a substitute of attempting to manufacture a complete wind turbine instantly.
He mentioned foundations, civil works, tower fabrication, electrical set up, transportation, engineering, operations, and upkeep might present entry factors for Nigerian firms.
“The point is not to begin with a fully Nigerian-made turbine. It is to ensure that each project creates capabilities that can be used by the next project,” he mentioned.
The guide additionally warned towards creating technology with out the transmission infrastructure required to evacuate it.
For future wind tasks, Mr Odiniya mentioned website choice ought to contemplate not solely wind energy but additionally grid entry, logistics, safety, land and lifelong working prices.
Egypt constructed system round tasks
North African financial powerhouse, Egypt, exhibits what occurs when tasks are developed alongside the establishments and infrastructure required to assist them.
In written responses to questions from PREMIUM TIMES in September, Jauad El Kharraz, senior advisor to the TERAMED Initiative and former government director of the Regional Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency, mentioned Egypt’s enlargement adopted a sequence of institutional choices that lowered uncertainty for traders.
Egypt’s Electricity Law, Law No. 87 of 2015, supplied a framework for the nation’s electrical energy market and allowed better participation by personal mills.
Egypt had additionally introduced a separate Renewable Energy Law, Law No. 203 of 2014, which established mechanisms for creating renewable-energy tasks.
The nation first used feed-in tariffs to encourage personal funding in renewable power and develop tasks such because the Benban photo voltaic park.
It subsequently moved in the direction of aggressive auctions and build-own-operate preparations because the market matured. Egypt’s New and Renewable Energy Authority (NREA) lists feed-in tariffs, aggressive auctions, build-own-operate tasks, and impartial energy producer preparations among the many mechanisms used to develop renewable-energy tasks.
That development mattered as a result of builders weren’t merely being requested to build renewable vegetation. They had been being given a clearer framework for the way electrical energy can be bought and the way funding might be recovered.
The Benban expertise illustrates the impact.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) says it invested greater than $1.1 billion in 16 photovoltaic vegetation at Benban, with a mixed capability of 750MW.
The vegetation had been related to Egypt’s nationwide electrical energy grid in 2019. The financial institution additionally supported Egypt’s transfer from feed-in tariffs in the direction of aggressive renewable-energy auctions.
Mr El Kharraz mentioned Egypt additionally addressed a few of the infrastructure issues earlier than they might develop into bottlenecks.
The New and Renewable Energy Authority, he mentioned, helped make land obtainable in resource-rich areas, whereas the federal government invested closely in transmission.
According to figures he supplied, Egypt’s 500-kilovolt transmission strains elevated from 2,364 kilometres in 2014 to 8,250 kilometres by late 2024, whereas substation capability elevated to about 48,000 megavolt-amperes (MVA).
The lesson for Nigeria is {that a} renewable-energy project can’t be handled as an remoted producing asset. The land, transmission system, energy purchaser, financing construction, approvals and upkeep preparations should develop round it.
Egypt’s mannequin additionally relied closely on improvement finance.
EBRD financing helped set up the Benban pipeline, whereas the financial institution labored with Egyptian authorities on the design and implementation of aggressive renewable-energy tenders.
Mr El Kharraz mentioned Egypt used sovereign-backed preparations, standardised contracts, risk-sharing mechanisms and development-finance establishments to scale back the dangers personal traders confronted.
He mentioned a few of these institutional rules might be tailored to Nigeria, together with standardised bankable energy buy agreements (PPAs), clean-energy corridors with ready land and grid connections, and extra coordinated allowing.
A Nigerian mannequin
For Nigeria, the reply is just not to copy Egypt’s mannequin wholesale.
Tobi Oluwatola, affiliate associate at AP3 Advisory, famous that Egypt’s giant, centralised renewable-energy parks developed inside a distinct electricity-market construction. Nigeria, against this, has more and more relied on industrial and industrial tasks, mini-grids, and different decentralised techniques.
He mentioned Nigeria wants contracts that give traders the arrogance that electrical energy shall be bought, that there are credible consumers able to paying for the ability, and transmission infrastructure and mechanisms for managing foreign-exchange and different dangers.
Mr Oluwatola mentioned Nigeria might adapt components of the Egyptian expertise, together with pre-permitted renewable-energy zones, standardised power-purchase preparations and local-content necessities tied to public procurement.
The widespread lesson from each consultants is {that a} renewable-energy project can’t be handled as an remoted producing plant.
Land, financing, contracts, transmission, regulation, and the electrical energy market have to develop round it.
The tools drawback
Segun Ajayi-Kadir, director-general of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), informed PREMIUM TIMES that Nigerian firms can produce or assemble some renewable-energy tools, together with photo voltaic panels, mounting buildings, cables and battery packs.
However, specialised applied sciences and several other important inputs stay closely depending on imports.
Government figures cited by officers put Nigeria’s photo voltaic know-how import invoice at greater than N400 billion in 2025 and greater than N200 billion in the primary half of 2026.
Mr Ajayi-Kadir mentioned producers face excessive financing prices, foreign-exchange instability, costly and unreliable electrical energy, infrastructure gaps, expertise shortages, and uncertainty over demand.
This creates a round drawback.
Manufacturers are reluctant to make investments closely with out predictable demand, whereas renewable-energy builders typically flip to imported tools as a result of native suppliers can not but present ample scale, know-how, or aggressive pricing.
The authorities’s Distributed Access via Renewable Energy Scale-up (DARES) programme might assist break that cycle by creating predictable demand.
The programme targets electrical energy entry for greater than 17.5 million Nigerians via 1000’s of connections and mini-grids.
Another instance is the proposed Solarge Nigeria Limited photo voltaic manufacturing facility, established by the Rural Electrification Agency (REA), Infrastructure Corporation of Nigeria (InfraCorp) and Dutch firm Solarge BV.
The proposed facility is designed to hyperlink manufacturing to a assured market, with plans for local-content progress and procurement commitments.
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Mr Ajayi-Kadir mentioned localisation ought to however be gradual.
Nigeria, he mentioned, can start with solar-module meeting, mounting buildings, cables, battery packs and different balance-of-system elements earlier than shifting into extra refined applied sciences.
For wind, quick alternatives are extra probably to lie in metal towers, foundations, electrical set up, engineering and upkeep than in manufacturing full generators.
DARES programme potential
The authorities’s Distributed Access via Renewable Energy Scale-up (DARES) programme might assist break that cycle by creating predictable demand.
The programme targets electrical energy entry for greater than 17.5 million Nigerians via 1000’s of connections and mini-grids.
Another instance is the proposed Solarge Nigeria Limited photo voltaic manufacturing facility, established by the Rural Electrification Agency (REA), Infrastructure Corporation of Nigeria (InfraCorp) and Dutch firm Solarge BV.
The proposed facility is designed to hyperlink manufacturing to a assured market, with plans for local-content progress and procurement commitments.
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